


Improvised Rescue

by egosoffire



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Slavery, M/M, Multi, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-05-01 00:36:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 19,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14508624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egosoffire/pseuds/egosoffire
Summary: Tony Stark sees a one-armed slave being manhandled into a van. As someone who grew up around slaves and abhors the practice, he cannot let this stand.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, another slave au from me. I know, I'm kind of one-trick sometimes, but I hope you enjoy.

Tony avoided slave owning crowds on principal. He had grown up with slaves, and he wanted nothing to do with the entire practice. After the shock of his parents’ death wore off, one of the first things a young Tony Stark had done was have every slave on the property freed, if possible, or relocated. It was just a nasty business and he hated it.

Yet, somehow he found himself a firsthand witness of a slave being handled, shoved into the back of an unmarked truck. The slave, he noticed before he disappeared into the blackness of the truck, had a missing left arm. 

“Hey,” he called out. “What’s going on over there?”

The man who’d shoved the slave inside stepped back out of the truck, staring him down. He was a big brute of a guy, with bulging muscles and a bald head. He stared Tony down like he was a piece of slime on  the bottom of his foot. 

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“If you don’t know that, that’s your problem,” Tony said. He really wasn’t even a fraction of the cocky bastard that people thought he was, but he did a pretty good job playing his role. “The name Tony Stark doesn’t strike a chord, at all?”

“I don’t care who you are.” The words were icy. “Just mind your own business and walk away.” 

“What are you doing with that slave?” Tony asked, his words equally cold. He could command attention when he wanted to. 

“Selling to the farm, not that it’s any of your business.” 

Tony grimaced at that. The farm was a plantation upstate where slaves were sold when they had lost their worth to their owners. If this slave was being sent to the farm, it was likely that he’d be dead within the month. 

“What’s wrong with him?” 

“If you didn’t see the missing arm, you’re more of an idiot than you look like.” 

“How’d he lose it?” Tony asked, innocent curiosity.

“A fight.” 

“How much is the farm paying you?” 

The man’s dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. “A grand is all I can get for this one,” he said. “I want to get rid of it before it ends up costing me more.”

“I’ll pay six.” 

The slaver laughed, a horrible laugh of disbelief. “No way,” he said. “What do you get out of it?”

“Let’s just say I’m a very rich man with a very specific fetish,” Tony said darkly. “To you, it doesn’t matter why. All that matters to you is the cash in hand, right?”

“You’ll pay cash?”

“Of course,” Tony said grandly. “I am a gentleman of my word and cash is golden.”

It only took a few minutes. While he didn’t keep slaves, Tony kept very loyal employees and within five minutes, the cash was delivered into the hands of the greedy bastard in front of him.

He was then given possession of a one-armed slave, who looked dazed and confused for a moment before passing out in his arms.

Tony took care of business from that moment on. He carried the slave back inside, had him laid down in a room and immediately got him medical attention **.**

Unfortunately, the life of Tony Stark was a busy one. 

Tony initiated JARVIS, sighing. “JARVIS, I have a conference I can’t miss,” he said. “Send me any updates on this guy.”

“Of course, sir.”

Tony spent the entire time agonizing over the slave’s state, as well as the choice that he had made. He wasn’t sure if it was the right one and it terrified him. He didn’t want a human life to be in his hands. Hell, he could barely take care of his own human life.

“Sir.”

JARVIS spoke in his earpiece.

“Talk to me,” Tony whispered. “What’s up?”

“Medical staff have examined the slave,” JARVIS explained. “He woke briefly, but was sedated again, because of fear for the medical personnel. He had a very violent reaction to their touching him.”

Tony winced at that. 

“How is he?” he asked. “Physically.”

“He was severely dehydrated and is currently on fluids, sir,” JARVIS reported. The AI then began to give a laundry list of minor medical ailments that made Tony’s stomach clench.

“What about the arm?” he whispered into his comm.

“His amputated left arm, sir?”

Tony rolled his eyes, muttering yes and hoping nobody heard the famous Tony Stark chatting with the air. He listened to the stats about the arm, the nerve endings and such. 

He knew that he could make the man another arm. It would take a bit of work, but with a little medical advice, it would be right up Tony Stark’s alley. Of course, that wasn’t the pressing concern of the moment. Yet, while dignitaries from various countries droned on and on, the man who owned Stark Industries, the bored genius, occupied himself with visions of his new prosthetic. 

When he returned, he immediately went to the room that his staff had put the man in. It was a small, sparsely furnished room, but comfortable enough. When he opened the door and went inside, he saw the man, unconscious in bed. An IV line had been run at his right side.

It was the first time that Tony was really able to look at him. He was a handsome young man with a pale face and hair that hung to his shoulders. He had a ragged, unkempt beard. His left arm was missing, an awkward and jaggedly scarred stump. He made Tony’s heart race. 

“I don’t know exactly how, but I’m gonna help you, alright?” Tony murmured, nerves getting the best of him. This was such a serious situation. 

It was that moment that the man woke up, his eyes flashing open. They were a wonderful sight. 

A gasp escaped him.

“Who are you?” he asked, his words desperate, and then he started to get up, to scramble out of the bed.

“Sir, the IV,” JARVIS said, activating.

“Hey, hey,” Tony said, holding out his hand like one would with a wild animal. “If you move too much, you’re going to pull out your IV and I know for a fact that hurts like a bitch…”

Realization dawned in the man’s pretty eyes. “You bought me…” he murmured, to himself. “You bought me when they were shipping me to the farm… Sir, I…”

“Don’t call me sir.” Tony did not mean for his words to come out so harshly, and he regret them as soon as fear shot through those beautiful blue eyes. “Hey, no. I’m sorry. I just...my dad owned slaves and it’s...a really long story that you do not want to hear.” 

“I don’t understand…” 

“Neither do I,” Tony admitted with a nervous laugh. “Trust me, though, that’s nothin’ new. My name’s Tony. What’s yours?”

Those eyes darted back and forth. It was like watching a frightened animal, desperate to fight or flee. “James, s…” The title fell away as he remembered he was told not to call Tony sir.

“James, hmm,” Tony murmured, sensing the hesitance. “You don’t like being called that, do you? Is there something else?”

There was so much hesitation he was sure that nothing would be said. Then, the man nodded nervously.

“Bucky.”

“Hey, I like that, Bucky. Don’t worry, okay? I don’t really know what the hell I’m doing, but my improvisation has always worked, well...most of the time.”


	2. Chapter 2

Soon, Bucky had recovered enough to have his IV removed, and Tony stood by as doctors made sure he was clear to stand. “Here, I can help him,” Tony offered gently. He carefully walked over and took Bucky by his good shoulder, guiding him as he rose to his feet. 

“You feel okay?” he asked softly.

“I don’t know…” The answer came out as nearly a whisper. “I just don’t.”

“It’s okay,” Tony said. “You don’t have to know. **”**

The look of confusion that washed over Bucky’s face was heartbreaking.

“Please call if there are any immediate concerns, Mr. Stark.”

He nodded wearily at the young doctor.

His next order of business was to get Bucky properly fed. They stood together, in the kitchens, Bucky looking confused and out of place. Tony gestured to the counter, which had several tall chairs next to it. It joined the kitchen into a mini seating area. 

“Please, sit down.”

That confusion turned to terror at those words. Bucky looked over at the chairs next to them. He shook his head. “I can’t…” he said, the words coming out in a whisper. “I can’t. Not at a chair. Not...not there.” 

Tony, who had struggled with panic attacks for decades, knew exactly what he was looking at. He reached out and looked straight into Bucky’s eyes, but he did not touch the young man yet. He could recall one of his panic attacks in college, where he’d accidentally slapped Rhodey in the face. 

“Bucky,” he said softly, his tone cautious. “I know that you were punished for something like this in the past. I can promise you that it’s not going to happen today.” 

“It’s a trick,” Bucky said, earnestly.

The words made Tony’s heart ache. Had Bucky really been tricked to think something was okay by his master, and then punished for it after? 

“It’s not a trick.” He knew that there was nothing he could do to make his words more reassuring, given the situation. “I know there’s no way for you to really believe me, Bucky, but it’s not a trick. I just want you to sit down and get some rest and food.”

It took a few more minutes, but finally Bucky sat, looking at Tony like an animal ready to strike. 

“JARVIS, is there any of that soup in the kitchen?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, completely stocked.”

“Fantastic.” 

Tony touched the button at the front of his kitchen to begin the cooking. He rarely did the cooking himself, but his kitchen was completely automated, and the soup cooked without his needing to leave the traumatized slave at all. 

He went and retrieved the food from the kitchen, shaking his head. For an AI, JARVIS could be a huge mother hen. Two bowls of soup, along with a plate of bread had been produced. Yes, he knew that he didn’t take care of himself properly. He hardly needed anyone to tell him that.

Then again, he rarely did anything about it, said the sarcastic voice at the back of his head. 

Tony sat the bowl down in front of the slave. Then, set his own next to it and joined him.

“Eat,” he said. “Take it slow, but this shouldn’t do too much harm to your stomach. It’s good stuff. Old family recipe… Not mine, but my old cook’s…”

Eating one armed was not easy, evidenced by the struggles. Bucky eventually got the hang of it, though, taking slow, tentative spoonfuls.

Tony watched Bucky carefully and cautiously eat. He seemed like he was going to break at every motion that he made. Yet, no amount of caution could mask the utter joy on his face at the taste of the food. Tony tried to make it less embarrassing for him, looking down at taking a few half hearted spoonfuls of his own, before setting a slice of the bread near Bucky.

“Feeling okay?”

Bucky nodded, a nervous gesture.

Tony wished that he could start some sort of conversation with Bucky, but it wasn’t exactly the start of a relationship that lended itself to casual conversation. 

“So, Bucky,” Tony murmured, trying to find a topic that wasn’t going to hurt anyone, “where did that nickname come from?”

Bucky hesitated a moment, chewed and swallowed a bite of bread and then spoke. “My...my middle name,” he murmured after another long second that made Tony positively nervous. “It’s Buchanan. My...my friends, when I was a kid, started calling me Bucky and it stuck…” 

So, he hadn’t been born a slave. Yeah, he was a little bit too old for that to be likely, but still that was interesting. Sold as a child, probably, given his age. It had happened in many impoverished communities when the wars had broken out. Too many orphans, and not enough resources to go around.

“It’s cute, and it really suits you.”

“Thank you.” 

“Can I ask where you grew up?” Tony asked. He knew he was risking bringing up something painful, but his curiosity got the better of him.

“Brooklyn.” 

That explained just about everything. The Brooklyn Bombings, when Tony was only a teenager, had claimed so many lives. There had been so many orphans and a total boom in the industry of slavery.

“You full?”

Bucky nodded, slowly.

“Good,” Tony said, smiling warmly. “Do you think you could handle a bath? I’d go for a shower, but I can see you’re still shaky on your feet.” 

Bucky nodded, hesitantly. 

Tony took him by the arm, gently, and helped him up. “Come this way,” he said. “We’ll go to the first bathroom on this floor. It’s got a nice big tub so that you can stretch out comfortably.” 

They reached the bathroom and Tony opened the door. He could see the former slave’s eyes widen. 

“Pretty cool, huh?”

Bucky nodded. 

“Can you get that shirt off alone, or do you need help?”

“I got it,” Bucky said, the words quiet. 

Tony watched as he took off his shirt, a very cautious gesture, a bit of a struggle that he tried to make look less uncomfortable. 

He couldn’t help gasp at the sight of the other man’s naked back. Scars criss-crossed over strong, well-defined shoulder blades. Some were straight lines, lash marks that intertwined, and others were deeper, more precise. Every inch of flesh was scarred in some way.

“Are you okay, sir? I...I ah, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry,” Tony said. “You’re gonna slip up for a little while until you get used to it. Plus, I was just startled…”

He quickly turned around, so that Bucky did not see his horrified face. With his back to the other man, he started the bath water by running the tap. The water flowed out in a steady spurt. Tony touched it, lightly in order to make sure the temperature was right.

He grabbed a purple bottle of bubble bath and poured a capful in. Once the water was frothy and full enough, he stopped the tap. 

“In ya go,” he said. “I’ll step aside.”

He wasn’t sure what kind of things the other man had been through, after all. He knew what kind of dark things went down in private quarters with owned persons. His own father had been into that. So, armed with that knowledge, he turned around, listening to the slave awkwardly take off the rest of his clothes and get into the tub.

After awhile, he felt the urge to peek, but resisted. “Are you doing okay?” he asked, back turned to the younger man. 

“I’m fine,” Bucky promised, but it didn’t seem to Tony to be the most convincing of promises. “It’s just...difficult, that’s all.”

“Can I help you wash your hair?”

The silence made him turn around, but Tony at Bucky’s face, nothing else.

“Yes.”

The gesture was strikingly intimate. He took the shampoo and began to work it through the long, limp hair that hung over Bucky’s face.

“I’ll get you a haircut soon,” he promised. 

Rinsing the shampoo from Bucky’s hair proved harder, but he grabbed a cup off the sink to do the job. He watched, as the other man’s eyes closed.

He didn’t think of himself as any kind of savior, but maybe this time he could do good.

Yeah. This would work out. He’d do good.


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky grew more comfortable in the house, day by day, but his unease wa there. Tony could see it, just beneath the surface. Tony saw it every single day they spent together, and wished there was something he could do to alleviate that pain. 

_ “I don’t know.”  _

That was Bucky’s answer, when Tony asked him what was wrong. The pause in his voice was long, and Tony had been completely convinced that was all he was going to get. Then, Bucky surprised him by speaking again.

“I don’t understand this,” Bucky said, his words quiet. “I don’t understand any of this at all, or you…”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t understand why you took me in, or what’s going to happen to me now.”

That sentence, spoken so softly, went straight into Tony’s heart. He closed his eyes, afraid of what would happen if he answered wrong. 

Sighing, he closed his eyes a brief moment, to keep those soulful blues from burning a hole in his face. “I wish I knew what I was doing,” Tony said. “Get to know me better and you’ll know that I absolutely never know what the hell I’m doing. Yet, I’m going to try, for you.”

“It’s just… it’s too good to be true.”

Bucky’s words came out so soft, desperate, like a whisper he didn’t dare speak. 

Tony stopped in front of the man and put a hand on his shoulder. The wounded remain of his missing arm had healed a lot better with some Stark brand medical treatment and that was a relief. It had obviously been ill treated when he’d first lost the arm. 

“I can promise, it’s not,” he said. “The paperwork came in a few days ago, and you’re here with me for a good long time, now. I’m going to work towards the process of legally freeing you, but until then, you’re entirely safe here.”

“It always falls apart.”

Tony reached over and took the other man by the hand. It was a light gesture, but one that he hoped meant something. 

“Do you want to see my lab?”

It was an innocent question, one that he hoped could lead to them spending more time together. He also wanted to see if he could ease them into a place where he could do some neuron mapping on Bucky’s arm, to see about creating a proper prosthetic.

“Oh, um, sure.” 

They went down to the lab together. Tony let Bucky in first after opening the door with his code. The result was fantastic. Bucky’s eyes got wide, and even though everything about the guy was restraint, hiding his feelings and emotions, his pretty eyes positively lit up.

“Like what you see?” he asked, with a warm smile.

The restraint that Bucky had worn like a mask fell back down, and he tried to get himself back under control.

“It’s amazing. It really is.” 

“I don’t know if you know anything about me,” he said, “but I’m an engineer. I…”

“I knew about your dad,” he murmured. “My parents used to talk about him when I was a kid.”

Even though it wasn’t surprising that someone knew who Howard Stark was, it still caught Tony entirely off guard. 

“Oh.”

Bucky nodded. “He was a very...brilliant man,” he murmured, with a bit of hesitance. “I can remember that much, at least.” 

“Good old dad was going for brilliant,” Tony murmured, hoping that his blatant daddy issues didn’t come out in his tone. “He often fell quite short of that mark, but I can tell you this. He did do some things that changed the course of human history.” 

There was a moment of silence between them, and Tony looked from Bucky to the diagnostic tool on the countertop. 

“Hey Bucky?

Bucky looked up.  

“Do you think I could run a scan of your...arm?” Tony hesitated on the use of the word arm, knowing it came off as uncomfortable and forced. “I mean, your left...I think that if I can do a quick scan of the neural pathways, then I can figure out how to make a decent prosthetic.” 

“Really?”

Bucky seemed shocked by that, but he did nod. Tony took that as consent and picked up his tools, slowly creating a map of the stump left behind. He watched in awe as the images appeared between them, and saw that his wonder was mirrored by Bucky.

“I can do something with this,” he promised, seeing the look on his face. “The loss of the arm was a bit messy, but at the same time, that’s mostly superficial. I really believe that with some work we can get a good prosthetic on here.” 

Bucky’s expression was timid, but Tony saw what lay behind it. There was the smallest spark of hope in his eyes, and that meant everything.

“How long ago did you lose the arm?” he asked Bucky.

A bit of tension passed over Bucky’s face. “It was about a year ago, maybe,” he murmured, as he considered the time. “Yeah, a year ago. I wasn’t going to survive it. I was sure that I was done for…”

“The guy who had you said you lost it in a fight. Is that true?”

Bucky nodded.

“The last group that owned me, HYDRA, was really big on slave fights.”

Tony was obviously disgusted at the words, but simultaneously pleased by the fact that Bucky was opening up to him. It meant a lot that someone who had been so beaten down, so broken by his life could really learn to trust. He honestly wanted him to trust.

“I’m so sorry,” Tony whispered. 

“I was pretty good at them,” Bucky admitted, looking down at the floor. While he spoke, Tony quietly ran calculations. He wanted Bucky to talk, but did not want to pressure him. “I was strong and focused and physically stronger than many men bigger than me.”

“Were you hurt in these fights before?”

“Sure,” Bucky murmured, “but it really wasn’t all that bad. I was the winner, for the most part, so it wasn’t like my master took  _ that  _ out on me, at least. The losers of the fights got the worst of it.”

Tony closed his eyes a moment, unable to deny all of the horrors of the world around him. 

“This fight was different,” Bucky admitted, words coming out like he needed to say them. Tony wasn’t going to deny him the kind of cathartic experience that he needed. “Someone important to me died. I can’t...I can’t talk about him right now.”

“You don’t have to,” Tony promised. “Don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”

“I will tell you, later if you want,” Bucky managed. “I just can’t right now. He… he was dead and I wasn’t handling it. I wasn't coping. I think I was tryin to get killed in the fight. Slaves died before and my opponent was big, violent, angry…”

Bucky inhaled.

“I had to act like I was trying, so I fought back,” he murmured, “but he was bigger, and stronger and he had a weapon. Some kind of blade, I can’t even remember.” 

“Shit…”

“All I remember is pain,” Bucky admitted, the words soft, almost childlike. “He cut me, badly. I blacked out and I thought that I was dying. I was relieved. Glad I could see Steve again…”

Tony felt his heart breaking.

“I woke up and the infection had been so bad that they took my arm,” Bucky murmured, looking at the stump that Tony had been examining. “Guy who’s slave did it paid a huge amount for it, because I was useless. Never found out what happened to him. Probably sold.” 

“Bucky, I’m so sorry…”

Bucky looked up and there was a flash of something in those beautiful blue eyes of his.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I stayed alive. Maybe it was for a reason.” 


	4. Chapter 4

The prosthetic was a beauty. The alloy that Tony had used was lightweight, flexible. Maybe it wasn’t entirely realistic looking, but it was sleek, shiny and aesthetically pleasing. He was not going to deny that he was proud of it. 

“Are you sure it’s going to work?” Bucky asked, as he looked at the arm. It lay in front of them, held up by a clamp on the middle of one of Tony’s work tables. “I mean, not that I think you can’t do it, but…”

“It’s intimidating, right?” Tony murmured. “I have a doctor friend, Helen, and she’s willing to help me with this. You’d be unconscious during, and it wouldn’t hurt at all after the procedure was done.”

“I do trust you,” Bucky said, as though he’d offend the hell out of Tony by saying otherwise. “You have been so good to me.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to trust me, after all you’ve been through,” Tony assured, wanting Bucky to know there was nothing wrong with his very natural fear and distrust. He had been hurt for so long, and now he had to have the courage to let a stranger operate on him. 

“I want to be able to use both arms again,” Bucky said. “If I want that, then I’m going to have to trust you, eventually.”

“Yeah, but eventually isn’t now, so I understand if you can’t.”

“I can.”

Tony could not help admire the tone in Bucky’s voice. It was obvious that the young man in front of him was scared, terrified in fact, but his resolve was beautiful. He took the man by the one good hand he had and squeezed it, lightly.

“That means the world to me.”

Two days later, the surgery was done and it was a success. “I have to admit that I’m shocked,” Helen Cho told Tony, looking at him with a bright expression. 

“Shocked, why?” Tony asked.

“I’ve never seen such a seamless transition between the robotic and organic. This prosthetic is going to change his life.”

“You know what he is, don’t you?” Tony asked. Luckily, he had been able to keep the fact that he now owned a slave quiet, but Helen wasn’t an idiot. She had seen the man’s naked chest and back. “I didn’t mean for this to happen…”

“I know,” Helen replied. “I also know how much you hate slavery. You had a reason for doing it.”

“He was being sent to the farm.”

Even though Helen was usually composed, he heard her tiny gasp.

“You saved him from a fate worse than death, Stark,” she murmured somberly. “That’s pretty big.”

Tony didn’t do it for the gratitude, but still, his friend’s words made his heart a bit lighter. “Let’s see how it works when he wakes up,” Tony said, waiting for that until he allowed himself the excitement. Knowing that it worked would come soon. 

Bucky came to slowly, blinking. Tony and Helen were at his bedside, ready to assist in any way, but neither moved. Bucky stretched, yawned and reached out with his left arm.

It was an instinctive reaction and he wasn’t quite awake yet. Tony could see the confusion spark in his beautiful eyes as he started to assess his surroundings. 

“Where am I…”

“Hello, Bucky,” Helen said, her words soft, cautious. “Do you remember who I am?”

Tony watched, warily. He had introduced Bucky and Helen before the surgery. He hoped her reintroducing herself re-oriented him.

Bucky nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “You’re the doctor...Helen…” 

Helen smiled at that and Tony found himself smiling too. They both watched, as it dawned on Bucky that he had a left arm. Bucky’s eyes widened and he curled it at the elbow, surprised. 

“It works…” he said softly, flexing his artificial muscles in awe. One by one, with wide eyes, he moved his fingers. Then, he moved them all at once. “I can’t believe that it actually works.”

“Well, you had a genius doctor and a decent engineer,” Helen replied, looking to Tony with a bright smile. “Congratulations.”

Bucky looked at Tony, then stretched his arm again. “This must have cost a fortune,” he whispered, moving each finger again, then turning his wrist. 

“Yeah, doesn’t matter though,” Tony said, his words bright and cheerful. “No use having money unless you use it to do some good.”

“This is insane,” Bucky murmured, rolling his wrist again. “Absolutely insane.”

“That’s me, Master of the Insane.”

-

After the prosthetic was done and attached, Tony made it his mission to make Bucky’s life as normal as he could. He tried to learn more about the young man too, find out what he liked. 

Turns out, Bucky was a big fan of movies, and Tony had a state of the art theater in his basement. “This is a movie theater?” he asked, when Tony took him down there the first day. His eyes got so wide with wonder. “Like an actual movie theater?”

Tony smiled.

“Yeah, you like it?”

Bucky nodded, the most genuine joy that Tony had ever seen on his face. 

From that day on, he and Bucky watched movies together almost every night. Bucky was not always open to talk about what he liked and disliked, but Tony picked it up through his non-verbal cues. Bucky was a big fan of fantasy, and action, but it seemed that science fiction was his favorite. 

It was their second viewing of the Star Wars trilogy, when Bucky fell asleep in his arms. Tony had nudged closer to him on the big, comfortable double chair, and Bucky had drifted off. 

It was really the cutest thing in the world. The other man had curled up at his side, clutching his arm with the new prosthetic. Tony couldn’t help laugh, pleased by how adorable the image was and how strong his prosthetic was.

He wrapped an arm around Bucky’s shoulder and just held him there. Things really felt, in that moment, like they’d be okay. 


	5. Chapter 5

Nightmares. 

Tony knew firsthand how traumatizing, how crippling they could be, and he imagined his nightmares were nothing like the ones that Bucky suffered. 

Many nights, Bucky woke up screaming. His screams filled the room and JARVIS immediately alerted Tony to the terrors. Tony, after a short while, started figuring out a way to calm them, even though they did not seem like they could be cured. 

He would sit next to Bucky, put a firm arm around him and lie in bed with him.

“You don’t have to keep coming into my room at night,” Bucky whispered, after they started making a habit of it. “It’s really okay.”

“I know I don’t have to,” Tony said. “I’m Tony Stark. There’s not much in this world that I actually have to do.”

“That’s a pretty big statement,” Bucky murmured. Over the few weeks they had spent together, the young man’s humor was slowly starting to shine through. He had a really good personality, a good heart. “I’m sorry I keep bothering you with my dreams, though. They’re just...ridiculous.”

“You’ve been through hell. There’s no shame in having nightmares, anyway.”

“I know, it’s just…”

“You dream about someone you lost, this Steve, right?” Tony asked. He was no psychotherapist. He knew that Bucky needed one, honestly, but that was a whole different level of complicated. How did he find a trustworthy therapist for a slave? “Do you want to talk about him at all?”

To his surprise, Bucky nodded.

“Steve was my best friend growing up,” he said softly. “He was the sweetest guy. Tiniest kid you’d ever meet and he had a lot of health problems. The worst was probably his asthma. His Ma, Sarah, she tried to help him, get him what he needed, but money didn’t come easy then.”

Tony grimaced at that. The economy had tanked around the time that Bucky would have been a child, yet people like Howard seemed to thrive.

“He was so brave,” Bucky murmured, his eyes getting suddenly distant. “Steve was this combination of brave and stupid that you couldn’t believe. He would fight anyone, if it meant that he was standing up for what was truly right. He was...an idiot and a hero.”

“I’m sorry.”

Bucky wiped at his eyes. “Bombings,” he murmured. “We both lost everything in one night, but somehow we survived. I don’t know how.”

Tony winced as the memories came back. He’d only been a teenager, but he could remember the images clearly. Someone had set off a series of bombs throughout Brooklyn. To this day, it wasn’t known who did it. There were thousands of casualties. 

“Did they make all of the orphans of the bombings slaves?” Tony asked, hesitantly. He didn’t want to hurt Bucky, but he couldn’t help the thread of curiosity. 

“I don’t know,” Bucky said. “Steve’s mother was very poor, and at the time, my parents had both already died. My sister and I were being raised by a family friend. They came around and gathered us up from the hospital.”

“Were you hurt in the bombings?”

Bucky shook his head. “Nothing bad,” he said. “Broke my wrist and had some smoke inhalation. That’s what nearly killed Steve… He was so sick and the smoke inhalation really should have killed him, but he made it.”

“You were made slaves right away?”

“Yes,” Bucky murmured. “I was twelve. Steve and I did everything in our power to stay together.”

“And you did?”

“And we did,” Bucky repeated, a look of fondness crossing his face and making him look considerably younger. “We managed to get sold together three times, through a combination of trickery and desperation.”

“That’s incredible,” he said. Slaves were at the mercy of their master’s whims. If Bucky had been sold so many times, staying with someone else was nothing short of a miracle.

“Steve and I were kind of incredible,” Bucky admitted, a somber look on his face. “We stayed together all the way up until HYDRA bought us.”

“How did he die?”

Bucky’s face darkened. “He got really sick after I started fighting,” he said. “I was sent out to a fight when he was seriously, deathly ill. I didn’t want to go, but when you’re a slave, what do you do?”

Tears filled Bucky’s eyes and Tony felt his stomach clench. Those tears were probably the most tragic thing that he had ever seen. 

“I came back from the fight and my Stevie was dead,” Bucky murmured. “They had just cleared out his things and that was it. All that time that I had kept him safe didn’t matter, because this time he was dead and gone.”

“I am so sorry,” Tony whispered. Honestly, the words seemed like they were coming from a broken record, over and over again. “I am so very sorry…” 

“I know that there’s honestly nothing to be sorry about.” The words that Bucky spoke were dark. “Steve is at peace. He had been hurting for so long, and now he’s dead. I don’t really know if there’s an afterlife, but our parents used to believe in one… and maybe…” 

Suddenly, a sob shot through Bucky like a firing gun. He curled up his legs to his chest and sobbed again, even though Tony could feel that he was trying his damndest to stop himself. 

He was hesitant to have too much physical contact, afraid he’d scare Bucky off, yet Tony loosely draped his arm around the young man. “I got you,” he promised, the gesture all that he could give in that moment. “I got you…”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky choked out in the middle of a suppressed sob. “I shouldn’t be…”

“You’re allowed to break,” Tony assured. “And cry and do whatever the hell you need to. I can promise you that much…”

“I just miss him so much.” Bucky’s words came out in a whisper, like a balloon that had been deflated suddenly. “Steve and I were always together, no matter how bad it got. He was always there.”

Tony nodded, giving Bucky a light hug and feeling for any resistance. There was none, so he kept a loose hold on him. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose someone like that,” he murmured. “I mean, I’ve lost people...but you two were…”

“Yeah,” Bucky murmured, as Tony trailed off. “Yeah, we were. Sometimes it just seems so pointless to go on without him.”

Tony swallowed at those words. That utter hopelessness was devastating to hear from someone so young, and with so much promise.

“I’ll help you find a point to it all, someday.”


	6. Chapter 6

****

“Tony, this is...really not going to be easy, even for you.” 

Pepper’s words weren’t comforting. Tony sat down with his closest friend and partner, looking at the data screen in front of them. He was trying to come up with a way that he could free Bucky.

“I know,” he assured her, “but there has to be a way, right?”

“Not until you’ve owned him for a long time,” Pepper replied evenly. “Like, I’m talking years, Tony.”

The screen in front of them spoke volumes about Bucky. At the top, there was a list of his previous owners. There were medical records (extremely sparse ones) as well as a half-finished log about the amount of times (and severity with which) he had been punished or disciplined by a master. 

Tony touched the file.

“This HYDRA group,” he murmured to Pepper, “they were really monsters… I bet they killed his friend because he was sick.”

“Several of these logs are punishments for interfering with his Masters’ duties. It’s saying, in a thinly veiled way, that he was punished for keeping other slaves safe, protecting them. At least one of these files mentions a young male slave. It looks like he spent a lot of his time protecting his friend. Did whatever he could at…” Pepper pulled up a discipline log and her face went considerably pale, “whatever cost.”

“Look up another slave really quickly,” Tony said, as Pepper pressed the computer’s controls to get rid of the log. “A slave that HYDRA owned about a year ago. His first name would be in the system as Steve.”

Pepper made a few swipes. 

“Steve Rogers,” she murmured. “Owned by HYDRA until about a year ago. Sold…”

She trailed off and looked at Tony. Tony looked back. Then, the rest of the data processed in his mind. Steve Rogers had been sold around the time that Bucky said he died.

“He isn’t dead.”

Tony’s entire focus shifted with that realization. He had to find the kid and save him, bring him back for Bucky. It would be the greatest thing he could do for the guy. He owed it to Bucky to use whatever was in his power to bring Steve home.

“Oh my god, the kid isn’t dead!” he declared, grabbing Pepper by the arm in his excitement. “He’s not dead!”

“There’s data about the next person he was sold to,” Pepper said, pulling it up for Tony. “He was sold to a military agency, Tony.”

“Well, I always did deal well with the government,” Tony said sarcastically. “I’m going to find him.”

“This is going to be rough,” Pepper warned. “Are you sure you’re prepared for what you’re getting into? Interfering with the government is big.”

“I’m never prepared, but things always end up working out for me, right?”

The name on the paper was a clueless young man, a young sergeant with dark hair and a scowl etched on his face. “Sir,” said Sergeant Daniels, carefully. “I really wish that I could help, but my commander is the one who acquires the slaves. I’m just the one who signs the papers and brings them in.”

“What do they do with the slaves?” Tony asked.

“A training program,” Daniels replied. “Lieutenant Ross and the commander send the up to this training program upstate. Part of that citizenship program.”

“Citizenship program?” Tony asked. 

In his earpiece, JARVIS filled him in.

“Sir, it was a program that was initiated in 2001, but was not finalized until four years ago. It’s called Project Soldier and on paper, slaves are supposed to become soldiers to forge a path to legal citizenship.”

It wasn’t like an AI to be judgemental, but Tony got the subtle clues in the way JARVIS was speaking. There were inconsistencies in the data that the AI had obtained and started analyzing. Something that didn’t add up. The AI was confirming to Tony, in his own way, that the data was not all it seemed. 

“Who do I talk to if I want to buy one of these slaves out of Project Soldier?” Tony asked. “It’s a very specific slave that I need.”

“Ross, I’d imagine. I can get him your message.” 

“My name is Tony Stark. I think Ross better talk to me now. It would be a shame if any of the issues with Project Soldier were revealed to the public.” 

“I can assure you that there are no issues with the project, sir.” 

“Alright then,” Tony said, turning on his heel. He felt ridiculously like Howard, doing shit like this, but this time it was utterly necessary. “I’ll see you around kid.”

“Wait, sir. I’ll get Ross for you.”

The man was not happy to have been summoned. A grisly old general, on the verge of retirement, Tony had probably pulled him out of whatever he was doing to coast by in his final years. 

“Anthony Stark,” he said, with a fondness that was a clear mask for contempt. “I used to be in contact with your father. Thaddeus Ross, it’s fantastic to meet you in person at last.”

Tony did not return the greeting. 

“General, you’re responsible for the purchase and relocation of slaves in something known as Project Soldier?”

“Yes,” Ross replied, a certain look of pride on his face that Tony did not miss. “You may or may not know this, but I was previously associated with Dr. Bruce Banner and his experiments with gamma radiation.”

Tony winced. He had read about the doctor and how wrong his experiments had gone. “I see,” he said, a little bit dryly. 

“Those experiments led me to believe that we needed something a bit less...extreme than Dr. Banner’s self-experimentation. We needed to find ways to enhance the body and mind that were not tied to deadly radiation. I worked with a team of doctors and scientists to create a method to enhance the human mind and physique, but without causing harm, or creating a monster. I helped turn regular men and women into soldiers.” 

“How many of these soldiers are out there?” Tony asked.

“The unit I oversee has 300 of them,” Ross replied, “but we have outsourced our technology to other military groups, branches and powers.” 

“Did any of them ask for it?”

“Ask for what?” Ross asked.

“Whatever you did to them.”

“No,” the man said, easily. “They’re all slaves, picked up from various places around the world. They’re not complaining, however, as they are better than they have ever been. Plus, I have personally offered them a chance at freedom after five years of service.”

“If they survive that long,” Tony said, filling in the blanks. “General, would you be willing to sell one of these slaves?”

Ross looked at him skeptically.

“I read that you detested your father’s owning slaves. Has that changed?”

“I want a specific slave,” Tony said, ignoring the question. “He was sold to your program about a year ago. His name is Steve Rogers.”

Ross tried to keep his expression impassive, but Tony saw a tiny flicker there. “I can’t help wonder why you want a specific slave, Stark,” he said cooly. “Care to tell me why?”

“I can pay you enough to not ask me questions,” Tony assured. 

“As tempting as that is, my answer is no.” 

The refusal was surprising to Tony.

“No?” he asked. “Why?”

“This program is secret,” he said. “Completely classified by the United States government. Knowledge of it would be a mess.”

“You just told me.”

“Nobody would believe you, Stark. You have no proof.”

“How do you know I’m not recording you right now?”

Ross laughed at that, his stern faced expression fading at that. 

“Any type of recording device was disabled the moment you entered this base,” he said. “I’m afraid that there’s nothing I can do for you.”

“I will get that slave.”

“I’d like to see you try.” 

Tony knew that he would try. Regardless of the consequences, Tony Stark always tried. 


	7. Chapter 7

Little did Ross know, Tony Stark was not without his own secrets. He was capable of things that nobody knew. Even  Howard Stark would have been surprised by his son’s abilities. 

Two years earlier, his life had been changed. He had been abducted in Afghanistan by a terrorist cell. A long, painful experience had killed the old Tony Stark, and part of him had been reborn as Iron Man. 

It had been several months since his last set of actions as Iron Man. Honestly, he was testing the waters, building the suit and preparing for whatever was to come next. Sometimes that weird Coulson from SHIELD would pop by, make a few cryptic comments and then leave. Mostly, Tony was left to do his own thing now.

Yet, while he waited, Tony had been perfecting the Iron man suits. The newest one was perfect for a stealth mission, like, you know...sneaking onto a military base. He sat at his desk, tweaking the on board computer with a frown. 

Bucky came up from behind him. “...Tony?” he asked, his words a near whisper. Tony could hear the strain whenever Bucky referred to him by his first name. 

He turned around and smiled. He wasn’t great at being drawn away from whatever he was concentrating on, but he didn’t let it show. “Heya Bucky,” he said brightly. “What’s up?”

“JARVIS said that you silenced the communication system down here,” Bucky murmured awkwardly, running his prosthetic hand through his hair. “He asked if I could come down here and tell you to come up and eat breakfast. I didn’t know a computer could...sound so concerned.” 

Tony laughed at that. Of course. He had shut down the comms because he didn’t want to be interrupted while he was thinking things through. 

“Well, my dear friend isn’t like any other computer,” he said. “Have you eaten yet?”

Bucky shook his head.

“Cool. I’ll come up and we can eat together.”

“What is that?” Bucky asked softly. 

Tony looked up, surprised. So far, Bucky had just quietly existed in his life. He had wandered the halls of Stark Tower like a ghost. He rarely spoke up, or asked questions and often Tony had to make sure that he was attending to his own basic needs. 

So, Bucky’s curiosity came across as sweet, and totally genuine.

“You don’t know about Iron Man, do you?”

Bucky shook his head.

Tony figured that this was something he really had to share with Bucky. He was keeping what he knew about Steve quiet,  but Bucky at least deserved to know about Tony’s alter ego. It had been two years since he uttered the words, “I am Iron Man.”

“There wasn’t news or anything like that back when…”

Bucky shook his head. “Not when we got transferred to HYDRA,” he murmured. “They kept us in the dark, totally.”

Well, that was just heartbreaking. Tony touched the suit. “Two years ago, something happened to me,” he said, finding that statement to be...lacking in something. You can read all the details someday, if you want to, but long story short, I changed as a person. I became this...Iron Man.”

He activated the suit. It sprung to life, rising up in the air.

“Want to see?” he asked.

Bucky’s eyes went wide with something close to delight. Tony had never felt so excited to show someone what he was capable of. 

“Are you like a superhero?” Bucky asked. “When Steve and I were kids, we used to read all these comic books…”

“Yeah, I guess I have done some superhero-like things,” Tony replied, “but I have a really hard time using the s-word to describe myself. It’s just part of who I am, who I have been ever since that day.”

Tony flicked his wrist.

The suit activated and he stepped inside of it. He lifted off of the ground, showing off just a little bit as he rose up into the air and did a few experimental flips. 

“Oh my god.”

Then, Bucky smiled. It was the most beautiful smile that he had ever seen. He clasped his metal hand with his real one, and smiled widely. 

Then, JARVIS had to butt in. He had turned off the comm in the lab, but not in the suit itself. “Sir, I had figured that you and Mr. Barnes would come upstairs…”

“Never knew I was creating a mother when I programmed your consciousness,” Tony said, even though that wasn’t quite true at all. He had made JARVIS into what he needed at the time. “I was showing Bucky the suit, that’s all. We’re on our way up.”

He disengaged the suit and found that Bucky was still smiling warmly.

“That was the coolest thing ever,” Bucky admitted shyly. 

Tony reached out and touched Bucky on the shoulder. He flinched, slightly, but a lot less than before. “Come on, let’s go upstairs and eat. I’m hungry.”

At the breakfast table, Tony watched Bucky eat, happy to see him vigorously eating his breakfast. He looked a lot healthier since the day Tony had bought him. It was extremely comforting.

“Have you saved people?” Bucky asked, hesitantly, after a bite of his eggs. “I mean, you don’t have to answer that. I’m just…”

“Curious. That’s good. You’re allowed to be curious.” Tony tapped his fork against his plate as he thought. “I have, yes. I mean, I’ve done some pretty good things as Iron Man. I think I did more as myself, though. This company used to sell…”

“Weapons, explosives, stuff like that,” Bucky said. “I’ve been doing a lot of research. You took Stark Industries into sustainable energy, power, things of better use…”

“I knew I left you alone with too much reading material,” Tony said fondly.

“It makes me happy,” Bucky admitted in a soft voice. “I think about the bombings a lot, and I...I realize how many kids in foreign countries went through exactly what Steve and I did. You made a big impact on that.”

“It sometimes feels like it isn’t enough, and it wasn’t nearly soon enough,” Tony admitted, Bucky’s praise opening him up a bit. “Thank you for that.”

“You’re a good man.”

“I try to be.”

Bucky looked down at his plate for a long moment. “I’d like to help you,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I’d like to help you somehow,” Bucky said, and then there were his beautiful blue eyes again. “I don’t know what I can do to help a superhero, and an industrial genius, but I’d like to help...somehow.”

Those words were just so sweet and so pure. Bucky was a good soul, even though he had been through hell. 

“You can help somehow, someday,” Tony promised, “but first, you’ve gotta live your life.”

And first, Tony thought, I have a mission.


	8. Chapter 8

“I’ll be back in three days,” Tony told Bucky, touching his shoulder lightly. “This is a very important mission. JARVIS will help you with anything you need. If anyone gives you any trouble, you can use his system to call me, do you understand?”

“I don’t think I’ll have any trouble,” Bucky murmured. It was cute, honestly, as Tony realized in a moment that the younger man was actually  _ trying  _ to reassure him, in an awkward, mildly stunted way. “I mean...it’s very quiet here. Nobody bothers me.”

Nobody bothered Bucky because Tony had declared it so. His staff were not to treat Bucky like anything but a guest of the house. He was very serious about that particular ruling.

“You should watch more movies, while I’m away,” Tony said. He and Bucky had been working through a large library of film together. Bucky was a total movie buff, and it was great to watch with him and see just how enraptured he was. “Try out Jurassic Park next, maybe. The dinosaur one I was telling you about.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Bucky assured. “I am very good at keeping myself entertained. I can promise you that.”

“I’ll be back soon,” Tony promised. He leaned over and hugged Bucky lightly.

To his surprise, Bucky hugged back, just lightly. “Please be safe on your mission,” he said, his voice quiet. “I’ll see you as soon as you get home...I mean, back.”

Tony couldn’t help the grin that crossed his face. Bucky felt like he was at home, and that was a victory in itself. Now, he was going to find Bucky’s friend and bring him home as well.

The military base was, as military bases generally tended to be, very securely guarded. Tony’s suit, however, was stealthy. 

He pulled up the layout and looked at the map in his viewscreen. It was a simple base, a major hub in the middle, with buildings in a spoke pattern around the hub. The problem was, of course, locating and retrieving one of what could possibly be many slaves on the base.

“The building at ten o’clock is a barrack, right? Life form reading?”

“There are twelve people in that building, sir.” 

The answer from the AI was around what he expected. “Guard at the door?”

“Yes, sir. Two.” 

Tony sighed. The design of the base was rather simplistic, but at the same time was also designed so nobody could get inside without going straight through. 

Tony had always operated, as Iron Man, in a strange place legally. He wasn’t exactly sanctioned by the government to do what he did. Yet, the government generally tolerated him because of two reasons: what he did made a difference, and he was rich enough not to be messed with.

Yet, this was something altogether different. His enemy in this one was the United States government itself. 

“Sir, there’s movement.”

Tony found a place to conceal himself, as a pair of soldiers made their way towards the barrack building. There were two of them, tall, muscular men in army fatigues. They both just looked so damned strong. Could either of them be Steve Rogers? It was hard to see from where he was.

An alarm sounded.

“What the hell’s that?” Tony rasped out.

“You’ve been spotted. Retreat.”

Tony turned to make his retreat, but a soldier came out of nowhere from his left side. Something caught him and the suit tried to deflect it, but failed. He was then grabbed by the two who had been returning to the barracks.

“Is this an enemy attack?” asked one, a man with tan skin and sharp golden eyes. “State your name and affiliation!”

The two were wearing normal fatigues and seemed confused, unsure, but the guards posted at the door immediately came running and one of them definitely recognized him. “Stark!” 

A gun was pointed at his face.

Tony raised his hands, trying his best to diffuse the situation. “Hey there gentlemen,” he said, calmly. “I’m not here for a fight, I promise. I’m here for a man named Steve Rogers. I can take this Rogers and leave and we won’t have a problem.”

He held both hands out. He didn’t want to hurt the country’s finest, honestly, but he would do what he needed to in order to get the job done. That was just the kind of person that he was and always would be. 

“I just need Steve Rogers.”

Apparently, that was enough to get shot in the back of the suit with something that sent the sensors into overdrive. 

“Shit.”

Tony’s eyes blurred. Things went suddenly dark.

When he came to, Tony was thankfully still in the suit. The emergency defense protocol had engaged with the blast to the back and the suit was a hell of a lot sturdier than he was. His head pounded and he blinked a few times to clear the heaviness. 

“What did you want with that slave?”

The voice that spoke was a quiet one. A man about his age, a thick black collar around his throat. Another slave, but he didn’t carry himself like one. 

“I know you.”

The man in front of him laughed. He did not meet Tony’s eye, but instead looked at the bindings. Tony followed his eyes to see that his wrists and ankles, or well, the wrists and ankles of his suit were bound in some type of metal encasement. Titanium, maybe?

“You don’t know me.”

“You’re Doctor Banner,” Tony said, the heaviness fading and his mental capacity returning to him. “You’re a master of your field, one of the greatest scientists of our time…”

“I used to be, maybe,” Banner replied. “Of course, these days I’m just as much that man as you are Stark Industries’ billionaire playboy.” The man tapped his collar with a wry grin.

“You vanished. Presumed dead in a radiation incident.”

“Not that lucky,” Banner laughed. “There was a radiation incident, though, and I was...removed from the picture.” That was when Tony noticed a faint light blinking from underneath the collar. There were some kind of waves coming from them.

“It negates the radiation,” Banner half-explained. “Keeps things we don’t want to happen from happening.” 

Tony was usually a quick judge of character. He found, in his life, that he had to be. He was betrayed far too often not to home in on that skill. He knew, instinctively, that he trusted Bruce Banner.

“How do you know we’re not being bugged?”

“I made sure of it. You can talk freely for the next… eight minutes.”

“I met a slave,” Tony said. “Or well, I bought him to keep him from going to The Farm. I found out about his best friend...a friend he thought was dead.”

“And that friend is part of Project Soldier.”

Tony nodded slowly. 

“Name?”

“Steve. Steve Rogers.”

“Shit, of course the friend is Steve. It had to be him.” 


	9. Chapter 9

Banner told him as much as he could in the seven remaining minutes they had. Steve Rogers was a challenge, from the moment he was dragged into Project Soldier. He resisted his handlers with every ounce of strength that he had. He was so small, so weak, that they figured he would die before they started the treatment. 

“What kind of treatment are we talking about?” Tony asked, even though he knew it was a waste of valuable time. 

“He was turned into a weapon,” Banner whispered, pain crossing through his dark eyes. He knew, for a fact, that the man had been through the unthinkable. “All of the ones who survived were. He was this tiny little sliver of a man, and now he’s one of the strongest that Ross has.” 

“Does he obey?” Tony asked. He couldn’t imagine someone with such spirit would obey those out to break him. 

“He has to,” Banner murmured, eyes darting from side to side as their time grew short. “They prey on the small slaves, the ones who haven’t taken to the serum, in order to keep the powerful ones in line. He does what he’s told on missions, because it keeps the others alive.” 

“I need to get him out,” Tony said. “I mean, hell, I want to burn this whole project to the ground, and I will, but I want to get Steve out first.” 

“You’re an engineering genius,” Banner murmured, looking from side to side. “We have a minute and a half so listen. This collar on me. You have to get it off. Ross is going to bide his time and try to make a deal with you. You’re Tony Stark. You can’t go disappearing the way that I did. I can help you get out, but… it’s dangerous. You take this off me, and we’re all at risk.”

“Do I have other options?” Tony asked darkly. He had heard rumors of what Banner had become. 

“Not unless you want Ross and the US Army to stage Tony Stark’s tragic demise.” 

“Then, I’ll help you.”

It was a long process, getting the collar off of Bruce. There wasn’t much he could do without being seen or spotted. And even though the suit had refused to be pried off of his body, an EMP had cut off his communication system entirely.

Ross came to see him after nearly two complete days. The man looked perturbed, to say the least. 

“You really have made a mess for me, Stark,” the man said, walking up to Tony. He then looked up and down. “The suit. Why haven’t you taken it off?”

Tony laughed at that. He had taken off the faceplate and yet, the rest of the suit remained. “Protocol in a hostile situation,” he said. “I initiated it right before I went down. Prevents my tech from falling into the wrong hands.” 

“Clever.”

“That’s me,” Tony said, meeting his eyes. “Is this really necessary? I mean, I know I snuck into your super, duper secret lair, but I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

“Project Soldier is the culmination of my life’s work,” Ross explained evenly. “I’m not going to have it torn apart by a spoiled brat with an agenda. That’s why you’re here isn’t it?”

“What?” Tony asked flatly. 

Ross tapped on the suit and Tony flinched. “This,” he said. “Iron Man. The hero. The redeemer. You’re here to break out the poor slaves.”

At Ross’ words, Tony laughed. “No,” he said. “You got me wrong there. I mean, I know I’ve got a reputation as some sort of redeemer, trying to make up for the sins of the past and all, but that’s not why.” 

Ross took a step towards him, a step meant to menace, to bring him fear.

“Then why, Stark? I want to know why.”

“I’m doing this for a friend,” Tony said, a completely honest answer that Ross was going to see as a lie. “You have a slave, Rogers, who is family to that friend. I came here to get him back. Give him to me. I’ll pay for his release and you will never hear from me again.”

“You’ve seen too much.”

At Ross’ words, Tony laughed. He knew that it came off as arrogant, but it was ridiculous to think he was being intimidated with tactics that sounded like something out of a Mafia movie. 

“You can’t make Tony Stark disappear, Ross,” he said, channeling the arrogance that had always been a great facade. “You know that this isn’t going to go well for you and this project, unless you trust me.”

Ross turned, but Tony could see that he was thinking.

Tony did his best, in the next two days, to figure out the collar that Ross had put on Bruce Banner. It was simple enough to disrupt, but he couldn’t do it with the suit still on him. 

“If I could get my AI back online, then I could get rid of the suit,” he whispered to Banner, picking at the food that had been brought to him. Ross was keeping him alive while he tried to figure out what to do, honestly. “I wish I had told Rhodey or someone back home. They could get it back online from my lab.” 

~

Bucky could not get rid of the unease that rested deep inside of him. Tony Stark was his hero, his savior, and he was on a mission that he had not disclosed anything about. 

“Is there any update on...on Mr. Stark?” Bucky asked JARVIS softly. 

“No, sir.” 

Bucky winced. Being called sir was an uncomfortable sensation. 

“I feel like something might be wrong,” he admitted, speaking aloud more than to the omnipresent being. “Is there anything you can tell me?” Bucky wasn’t used to asserting himself, even with a computer system, but he had to. Something deep inside of his heart felt wrong. 

Bucky didn’t think a computer could hesitate, but JARVIS did. “Mr. Stark instructed me not to alarm you if something went wrong,” JARVIS explained, “but his internal systems went offline a few hours ago. I am trying to get them back up. I have contacted Colonel James Rhodes, but he is not available. I believe he is on a diplomatic mission and unreachable.” 

“Can I help?” 

JARVIS seemed to be pleased at that. Yeah, he was going to have to ask Tony about the AI’s emotional capacities. “Yes, sir, I believe that you can.” 


	10. Chapter 10

Tony was sleeping, or at least, dozing, when his suit sprung to life around him. “Sir, can you hear me?” JARVIS asked, the tone of the AI sharp and jarring him out of his sleep. “Sir. I am trying to get an estimation of your location.”

“Hey there, J,” Tony said, relief flooding him. Of course. Rhodey had gotten JARVIS to re-engage the suit. Which was awesome, because eating and using the bathroom had become twin horrors in the last few days. He really, really needed to get back to his life. “Rhodey got you back in action. That’s great.” 

“No, sir.” 

There was a hesitance in the way that JARVIS spoke. Tony knew that tone and the AI only used it with him.

“What does that mean?” Tony asked.

“Mr. Barnes assisted me in getting you back online. He’s right here with me if you’d like me to patch you through.”

“Not right now,” Tony said, shaking his head. “I told you not to get him involved, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir. You also programmed me to take the best course of action in an emergency. I believe that this was the best course of action.”

He’d had to program a smartass. Tony rolled his eyes and tilted his head back. “I’m at a military base,” he said. “I got caught trying to get him out. Do you have my location yet?”

“Hold on.” 

A moment later, JARVIS came back on. “Yes, sir, I have you pinpointed.”

“It’s time we tested out that remote suit I’ve been working on, then,” Tony said decisively. “Send him over. He’ll respond to my voice commands, right?”

“That is theoretically true,” JARVIS said, “however we have not tested these functionalities and had any sort of complete success…”

“Time to try it out,” Tony huffed with a grin. “Do it, J.”

 

Bucky looked confused as the AI began to initiate something. 

“What are you doing?” he asked.

JARVIS replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “Mr. Stark has been captured in an attempt to rescue a slave,” he said. “I am sending a remote suit in to rescue him.”

“A slave?” Bucky asked, his voice heavy with nerves. “Why would he be going after a slave in the first place? He said the mission was really important…”

“I cannot answer that, Mr. Barnes. Do relax.”

Bucky paced the room and watched as a suit sprung to life at the corner of the room. It was like the suit that Tony had shown him, but this one was made out of a darker, more refined metal. 

The suit took a life of its own and then flew out the open hatch going out of the lab.

“Won’t it be detected?” Bucky asked, in awe. 

“No, sir. It’s cloaked. Please try not to worry.”

Bucky was worried, however. Tony Stark had taught him something that went in total contrast to everything he’d learned as a slave. As a slave, he and Steve had become each other’s entire world. They had survived for each other. When Steve died, Bucky had thought he had nothing left. Now, Tony Stark had given him something more to live for and that was scary.

A video feed appeared suddenly on the wall in front of him.

In it, he could see the insides of a dark compound. The camera, which he quickly realized was attacked to the remotely piloted suit, or part of the suit itself, was heading towards a door. 

“The controls are below you, Mr. Barnes,” JARVIS explained patiently. Underneath the image, a hologram of controls appeared. “I am patching you into Mr. Stark right now, but first you need to hit that button there.”

There was a red button at the center of the console, and it flashed several times. 

Bucky hesitated, but realized that hesitation was going to get him nowhere. He slammed the button and watched the suit disintegrate the door in front of him.

“Hell yeah,” Tony Stark said and Bucky could see him clearly on the video, wearing the suit he’d demonstrated and tied to a wall. “Bucky, man, are you in control of this thing?”

“You can speak to him.”

With JARVIS’ words, Bucky tried to find his voice. “Yes...yes, sir. It’s me.” He knew he wasn’t supposed to call Stark sir anymore, but he couldn’t help himself, not under all of this stress.

“Didn’t want to get you involved in this,” Tony said sadly, “but I suppose it’s okay since you’re not actually here. See the controls?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The switch to the left will control this baby’s repulsors. The dial can move him, but he’s smart on his own. Two top buttons can bring the arms out remotely. Now, I’m going to give him some commands and he’s going to do his job, but keep your eyes peeled for me. Can you do that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay,” he said. Then, he spoke to the suit. “Now, sweetheart, I need you to remove these locks.”

Bucky was almost caught off guard for a moment by the tender way that Tony spoke to his inanimate suit. He seriously sounded like a father giving his son instructions on the way of the world.

The suit, to Bucky’s immense surprise, listened to the instructions.

It’s arms shot forward and something came out of one of the hands. It picked the lock and freed Tony, and his suit from where they were bound.

“J, how are my levels looking?” Tony asked.

“Just below optimal, sir.” 

Tony was delighted. 

“Alright, Bucky, you’re gonna be my eyes and follow me out of here,” Tony said, engaging his suit’s flight. “We’re going to free my new friend, Dr. Banner, and then well, I guess we’ll see what happens from there.” 

Bucky followed Tony through the eyes of the remote suit. He had controls for it, but he didn’t have to do a thing. The suit followed Tony like a duckling following its mother, as he went down a hall. They entered a dark room with very little lighting.

Sitting at a desk, was the most worn down looking man Bucky had ever seen -- and he had seen a lot of people broken by the world around him. This man looked worse than many of the slaves Bucky had lived pressed side by side with for years.

“Stark.”

“Dr. Banner,” Tony said curtly. “Stand up.”

He looked at the second suit. “Bucky, can you ease the arm down manually and press the green button with the etchings on the front.” 

“What are we doing?” Bucky asked.

“Who’s that?” the man asked.

“A friend of mine,” Tony explained. “We have about two minutes until the big guns come. With my friend’s help, we’re going to remove the collar. Now, Bucky, just follow along.”

Bucky followed every instruction Tony gave him with delicate precision. He knew just how important this was. His suit was equipped with tools, which they used to rapidly disengage the controls around the man’s neck.

The collar came up with a click. 

That was when a group of men swarmed. 


	11. Chapter 11

The sudden burst of people was the least of Tony’s worries, and soon they left his thoughts as his suit took to the air and something happened. 

Bruce Banner gave the men who’d entered a somber look, held his breath and then  _ something  _ happened.

He had heard the rumors of what the man could become, but nothing compared to actually seeing it for himself, witnessing the raw destructive power as his body shapeshifted. In an instant, Bruce Banner turned into the massive green monster that the rumor mill had dubbed the Hulk. 

Bucky, bless him, could be heard yelling expletives from the remote suit’s comm system.

“Bucky, can you get the manual controls to follow me?”

Banner’s distraction was giving him just what he needed, a chance to sneak into the barracks and get Steve. Maybe he had a chance to save more than just one slave tonight. Maybe he could make a bigger difference before he got the hell out of this horrible place. 

Bucky, to his credit, figured it out, because the shiny suit followed after his own, as he burst down a door to the barracks. 

The chaos was immense, but he knew, right away, which of the beefed out men and women was Bucky’s best friend. The auto controls kept it flying, but without Bucky manning some of the controls, his second suit’s arms flailed, then hung at its sides. 

Bucky had stopped trying to regain control of the suit for a split second, and the suit had focused entirely on one man.

“Stevie.” 

A female soldier, one who looked strong enough to bench press a truck, had cowered at his entrance. Protecting her was a muscular, tall, blonde man with beautiful, concerned eyes. 

“Stevie, that’s not possible…” Tony could hear Bucky rambling through the remote suit. “What did they do to him? Steve!”

Steve looked up, surprised. He mouthed, “Bucky?” and stood up.

It seemed that in spite of whatever training Ross had put them through, the soldiers of the project were still young men and women - scared young men and women. They backed off as soon as the Hulk started to rage, smashing at the wall behind him. Debri flung through the air and Tony was thankful for the suit when a piece of stone smashed against his left shoulder. 

“Stop!”

The Hulk turned towards Ross’ yell, as the general entered the room. He was frantic, eyes wide. All previous signs of his composure were gone.

“Soldiers, I command you to get back into formation!” he added, but Tony could see the hysteria on his face. It was hidden behind layers of military stoicism, but it was still there. “Get back to your duties!”

Several got the courage to take a shot, but the Hulk batted away the bullets like gnats in the sky. Iron Man took to the sky, kicking a female soldier who tried to grab him out of the way. She went down, hard, and Tony regret it instantly. He wasn’t going to be able to get anyone else out yet. This would have to be a mission to save Steve, first and foremost. 

“I need you.”

Unsure of what to do amid all the Hulk’s chaos, Tony grabbed hold of Steve Rogers and lifted the man into the air. 

The soldier in his arms struggled, kicking at him with legs that he could feel even through Iron Man’s thick shell. He thought about the Steve that Bucky had described to him, and he couldn’t believe that this strong, powerful being was the same man.

“Steve,” Tony said, as they headed out of the barracks. The building schematics that JARVIS was showing inside his head said they were close to a door. “Steve, I know you’re freaked out, but I need you to stop struggling. My name is Tony Stark. I’m here to rescue you.” 

“Why?”

The word came out desperately, whispered, as Steve stopped kicking and hung limp, a large weight against his chest.

“Bucky,” Tony said, easing his tight grip on the man as they exited into the air. “It’s Bucky.”

“He’s alive?” Steve whispered. “I thought...I thought that they surely killed him by now. I…” 

“No, he’s alive,” Tony comforted, as they got into open sky. Steve was surprisingly composed considering he was flying in the air, clinging to a man in a suit for dear life. “He’s alive and well. I found him by chance and he told me all about you.”

“Did he know they took me?”

Tony hesitated as they touched down. Steve found his footing and looked back. Tony knew that they were both thinking about the monstrous Hulk and the other men and women stuck inside the program, but they could only make a difference with Tony’s resources. He needed to get back home to plan the next stage of the fight.

“They told him you died,” Tony said, unable to be anything but honest. “They told him that you’d died while he was off on a fight and he believed them. I thought so too, until I did some research…”

Pain crossed Steve’s face, pain that seemed almost unbearable. He looked as though he was going to shatter then and there, just break, but he did not.

“Is Bucky okay?” he whispered.

“JARVIS, get a car here, now. Where’s the remote suit?”

“With the...Hulk, sir.”

Shit. Well that was another problem for another moment. “I need a car here, now,” he said. “I have Rogers and I need to get back to the lab before the entire-fucking-US Army is at my door.”

“Is he okay?” Steve asked, his voice firmer than it had been the time before. “Please, I need…” 

“Car is on the way.”

At JARVIS’ words, Tony was able to focus his attention on Steve Rogers. The man looked like a god, but he could see something in his eyes, something weary and scared. 

“Steve,” he murmured. “Bucky’s okay. I picked him up when the people who owned him tried to pawn him off.”

“Why?”

There was something devastating about the word, the way that Steve spoke it. He had no reason to believe that anyone would help a slave out of the goodness of their heart. Tony knew that. 

“He was hurt, and they were going to sell him off to The Farm,” Tony said, deciding that sugar coating things was not the way to work with Steve Rogers. “I’m no saint, Rogers, but I am a human being, and I wasn’t going to let that happen to an innocent man.”

The car pulled up. The driver wasn’t Happy, nor any of the other people in Tony’s employ that he was close to. It was a man he didn’t recognize, but who seemed vaguely familiar in dark glasses. 

“Stark. Hurry.”

Tony pushed Steve gently into the car. 

It wasn’t until they arrived back at the Tower that Tony realized that this wasn’t a Stark driver. The car stopped and Tony got out. So did the driver. Steve followed, a nervous man in between them. 

“Who are you?”

The man took off his glasses and Tony recognized him suddenly. He was Clint Barton, Natasha’s partner and an agent of SHIELD. 

“Barton. We’ve met before,” Tony filled in. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, you successfully mucked up a SHIELD operation, buddy,” he said. “Natasha and I have been trying to get that military opp shut down for months.”

Tony felt immediately guilty, but he could not deny his own curiosity. Steve, meanwhile, was standing between them looking like he wasn’t sure if he should run or fight.

“Was Ross acting within the law?” he asked softly. “I mean, experimenting on people like that has to cross some clear lines.”

Barton shook his head. 

“Slaves are a grey area,” he said, taking a moment and acknowledging Steve. “Stark, why don’t you take him to the one you picked up. I’m sure that he needs to be reunited with his friend.”

Tony looked at Clint, a question on his face. 

“I work with Natasha,” Clint said with a playful laugh. “I know everything.”

Tony took a moment and then looked at Steve. “Come on,” he said, swallowing heavily. 

He found Bucky sitting in a chair in the lab, yelling hysterically at something. Whether it was JARVIS, or something beyond him wasn’t clear for a moment. Then, he turned and saw Tony. 

“Tony,” he whispered, his words absolutely dripping with desperation. “The creature that helped you is trying to get to safety, and I was trying to use the remote suit to help him...but…”

Bucky trailed off in the middle of a sentence.

Steve walked into the room. 

“Stevie?” he whispered, the word coming out in a tremor. He had seen Steve on the video feed, Tony was sure, but it seemed like seeing the man in the flesh was too much for him. 

He dropped to his knees.

“Holy crap Stevie, what did they do to you?”

Tony was about to react. He was about to head towards Bucky and do what he could to comfort the boy that he had become so close to. Yet, Steve got to him first, running over to Bucky and going down to his knees as well.

“I’m here Bucky,” he whispered, putting an arm around Bucky. “Oh, your arm… What happened?”

Bucky looked up, tears in his eyes. “You are not allowed to freak out over an arm,” he whispered. “Not when you’re so big…”

Tony looked at Bucky, then at Steve. It was clear in the way that they looked at one another that this was love. It was pure love.

He looked to Clint.

“Barton, let’s talk. While I pilot that suit to get Doctor Banner somewhere safe.” 


	12. Chapter 12

Bucky stared at Steve for a long moment. Tony and the other man had left them alone in the lab together. Steve was on his knees with Bucky, staring into his eyes. Steve looked nothing, however, like the man that he had once loved.

“Steve,” he whispered, getting off of his knees and falling into a flat, seated position. Steve sat down next to him, holding both of his hands with one of his. “Steve, what did they do to you?”

Steve looked like he couldn’t speak, opening his mouth and no sound coming out. He gaped for a moment, gasping and grunting lightly. 

“I didn’t know what happened to you,” Steve whispered, finally speaking. Tears spilled from his beautiful blue eyes and he wiped them, nervously. “They took me one night while you were in a fight and I was back in the sleeping quarters. I was asleep, and they put a gag over me and just...pulled me out.”

“Stevie…”

“I tried to fight,” Steve whispered, pain crossing his face. “I tried to do whatever I could to fight back. Yet, they were so much stronger than I was. They strapped me down and did all of these...experiments, I guess. They injected me full of shit and kept...putting me in these crazy situations.”

“Stevie…”

“One day I woke up and I looked like this,” he said. “I was in pain and confused and my body was changed. It was never going to be the same...” 

“You aren’t sick,” Bucky said with a wide eyed expression. He lit up. He knew the whole situation was devastating, but he couldn’t help focus on some of the positive. Steve wasn’t sick anymore. 

“Not at all,” Steve said, embracing what he was feeling too. “I’m healthier than ever. I can hear, my lungs are completely clear…” 

“Let’s get off this floor,” Bucky said, rising up to his feet. He took Steve by the hand. Steve got up on shaky legs. His eyes were focused on Bucky’s arm. 

“They’re going to come for me,” Steve murmured. “Your friend, he… he tangled with something that I’m not sure he entirely understands yet.” 

“I haven’t known Tony for too long,” Bucky told Steve, quietly, “but I know that he’s the type of person who often gets in over his head.”

Bucky gestured to the workbench and Steve sat down on top of it. He could not get over the sight of Steve’s body. His shoulders were strong, absolutely massive. The shirt that he was wearing literally clung to his chest.

“Amazing, right?” Steve asked, shaking his head.

“Amazing,” Bucky agreed. He sat down next to Steve.

That was when the grief hit. He had spent such a long time grieving for Steve, believing that there was no future without him. He had given up hope and the will to live, until Tony had restored it with his kindness.

“Steve,” he whispered, tears burning his eyes. It felt like a fire had started in the corners of his eyes; it spread throughout his heart. “Steven Grant Rogers… I...I gave up. I just...I’m sorry. I wanted to be dead after you left and yet I kept on doing their fights because I couldn’t… The time I lost my arm…”

Steve wrapped his massive arm around Bucky’s shoulders. It made Bucky feel immensely small. “Buck, I need you to do me a favor and breathe,” he said. The hand that wasn’t on Bucky’s shoulder was in his hair, stroking lightly. “I like the longer hair on you, by the way,” he said sweetly. “It’s a good look.”

“I tried to die in the ring,” Bucky whispered apologetically. He knew that of all the things he needed to say to Steve, that wasn’t one of them. Still, in his shame, he wanted Steve to know. “I...I just stopped fighting for my life after you were gone and that’s what lost me my arm. I’m sorry, Steve.”

A fierceness passed through Steve’s eyes that reminded Bucky a little bit of a bolt of lightning. It was intense, fast and then faded. Steve put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, just where Tony’s beautiful prosthetic began.

“Bucky, don’t apologize for that,” he said, rubbing, lightly. The skin to skin contact in a sensitive area that had once been nothing but pain left Bucky shivering. “Don’t. I mean it, Bucky. The life of a slave is...one where despair eventually takes hold. They design it that way. Easier to replace the slave that wears out than make sure he survives.”

“Tony saved my life,” Bucky said, trying to raise the mood at least a little. “He saw them loading me into a truck and he just...acted.” His admiration for Tony, he was sure, bled into every word he spoke. “Steve, you have to meet Tony for real. He’s the sweetest, most charming, wonderful man and he saved me with no thought for himself, and went after you and…” 

“It’s going to be an honor,” Steve said softly. He stroked Bucky’s cheek.

Then, he did something Bucky had been waiting for him to do for years. He leaned down and pressed his lips to Bucky’s, a slow, gentle kiss that was full of adoration. 

“Steve?” he whispered into the kiss, lips just hovering over the other man’s. “Why did you…”

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” Steve murmured. “Never quite had the courage for it, but now I feel like… I have a second chance.”

Bucky was overwhelmed by the words, but immediately pressed his lips back to Steve’s, desperately. He had loved Steve for so long, but had hidden it because there were other, more pressing things at hand for the two young slaves.

“Oh Stevie,” he whispered.

Then, he realized that he had been falling in love with Tony too. Confusion crossed his face for a moment.

What was he supposed to do?

 

“We’re going to bring them down,” Clint Barton explained, his arms crossed as he looked at Tony. “The problem is that a lot of SHIELD is sympathetic to slave owners. So, it hasn’t been high priority.”

“But you and Natasha think differently…”

“I was abused as a kid and Natasha was essentially owned by a Russian spy organization half her life. We have a bit different perspectives and Nick Fury’s on our side.”

“You got me,” he said.

“I thought that Iron Man played solo,” Clint laughed, referring to an interview that Tony had given as soon as Iron Man had come to light and someone questioned future partnerships. 

“He always has,” Tony said. He had never wanted anyone else to work on this with him. What he had endured in Afghanistan had changed him, and he wanted to fight Iron Man’s battles alone. Yet, Bucky had made him care on a level that almost scared him. “Yet, you’re talking about something that’s essentially going to dismantle slavery as an institution.”

“Fury always told me and Natasha to go slow,” Clint admitted, looking at Tony and then looking away. “You kind of just blasted this into a full out war, but I think that might just be what we needed. There’s a project… Fury’s idea, the Avengers Initiative. Superheroes. Protectors of the helpless. I think...I think that slavery goes along with that.”

“Why?”

Clint looked at him sheepishly. “Well, I mean, who’s more helpless in our society?” he asked. 

“Who would this team even be?”

“Well, Natasha and me. Then there’s Iron Man. A slave who’s been fighting on the inside for years. Another slave who was made into a powerful machine. Dr. Banner.”

“Banner?” Tony asked skeptically. “Barton, I get what you’re saying, but the man is…”

“Where do you think Natasha is right now?” Clint asked. “She’s going to get him.”

“I...I think we should go down to make sure they’re both okay,” Tony said, thinking of the two young men that he’d left alone. Steve hadn’t seemed hurt when he’d left him, but there was no saying what Ross and his idiotic program had done to him. Kid needed medical attention, probably. And Bucky…

“Yeah.”

So, he and Clint made their way to the lab. On a workbench near the wall, Steve and Bucky were kissing, passionately. Bucky’s eyes were closed, and there was a peaceful expression on his face that was positively beautiful.

Tony hated himself for the way it broke his heart.


	13. Chapter 13

As they started to make plans, Bucky couldn’t help notice that Tony was distancing himself. The man, who had become such a huge part of his life, suddenly backed away.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asked, as he finally caught Tony alone. Steve was in the bedroom, fast asleep. Tony was outside in the kitchen, leaning over the counter, working on a sketch of some kind, his face screwed up with concentration. “Tony.”

The man looked up, surprised.

“Oh, Bucky, hey,” he said softly. “I didn’t see you come in. Weren’t you supposed to be taking a nap with Steve?”

“He’s sleeping,” Bucky said. “I wasn’t tired, so I left as soon as he fell asleep.”

“Did you need something?” Tony asked.

“No. I just…” Bucky sat down at the counter next to Tony. “I wanted to know if you were okay.”

Tony put his pencil down.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve been...avoiding me,” Bucky said. He still had the urge to call Tony sir at every interaction they had, but it was easing somewhat. “I...ever since Steve, you haven’t really been...talking to me. It hasn’t been the same.”

“Well, we’ve all been busy preparing for the next phase,” Tony murmured. “I mean, Natasha and Banner are working on the big breakout…”

“It has nothing to do with the plans, does it?” Bucky asked. Even though there was still that doubt in his voice, he was proud of himself for confronting Tony. HE knew that it was going to take a long time to feel like a person again, but he was doing it.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Tony murmured, looking at him with dark eyes that were full of kindness, a gentle sympathy that Bucky found sweet. “I’m having some issues, sure, but that’s no problem of yours, Bucky. You got a lot more to think about than my drama. You have Steve back.”

Bucky couldn’t help smile at that, in spite of the general sense of unease that seemed to be filtering into the room like a gas.

“Tony, I was never able to really thank you properly for that,” he said. “I...I can’t believe that you were able to do something like that. If it wasn’t for you then I would have never know he was alive. I - I would have spent the rest of my life mourning him.”

Tony smiled, but his smile was strained.

“Pretty damn awesome, isn’t it?” he asked. “It’s by chance, really. I just wanted to know more about what happened to him and found evidence that he was sold…”

“You’re brilliant.”

“Oh, totally,” Tony said with a grin. “Now, want to help me with this?”

-

Steve Rogers woke up and he was all by himself. That wasn’t new, but it almost took him a moment to recall where he was. Memories of his rescue from the Project, of reuniting with Bucky, they flooded through his mind and comforted him like nothing else.

He was where he needed to be.

Steve got up slowly. He walked across the bedroom where he’d been sleeping to the closet, which had a full length mirror on the front. He looked at himself and shook his head.

His new body was something he would never get used to. He wasn’t sure what they did to him, exactly, but he knew that it was painful and likely irreversible.

Not that he ever wanted to go back to how things were, not really. Of course his new body felt unnatural, but being sick and weak and a slave meant that he was never anything but a victim.

He refused to be a victim again.

It had been a long time since he’d last seen Bucky, but Bucky had changed too. Not just the arm, either, although that was the glaringly obvious change. They had been through hell together, since the day of the Brooklyn Bombings, but they had always suffered together. They had always endured the worst together.

Bucky had been alone for a long time. He had been forced to endure alone.

No, not quite alone.

Bucky had told him in a hushed voice, about the man who had saved his life and given him back his purpose. Steve was eternally grateful to Tony Stark.

He changed his clothes quickly and then went to look for them. Stark’s place was unlike anything he had ever seen. As Steve headed up a hall, he saw a woman.

The red haired woman looked over at him, eyebrow raised. “You really are a specimen,” she murmured. “I saw your before pictures…”

“Uh, hello?” Steve murmured.

“Steve Rogers,” she said, approaching with a swift stride. “Agent Natasha Romanoff. I guess we should know each other now that we’re part of the same project.”

“I guess we should,” Steve agreed, taking hold of her hand.

“Are you well?” she asked, with the tone of someone who wasn’t used to exchanging pleasantries.

Steve couldn’t blame her. He honestly wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of them, either. People didn’t talk to him like a human being. He was just a slave. A slave who had grown distrustful of people just like her.

“Can I ask you a question?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Why are you doing this?” The moment the words left his mouth, Steve felt insecure about them. It was rude, uncalled for that he would question her motives when she was part of something so good. “I’m sorry, it’s just…”

Her uncomfortable demeanor diminished a bit at that. “Don’t apologize, Captain,” she said with a smile. “I can’t imagine that it’d be easy for anyone who’s been in your shoes to trust.”

“Captain?” he asked.

Natasha laughed at that, a surprisingly warm laugh.

“Sorry,” she said. “My partner, Clint, he started calling you Captain America while we were outlining our plans. I guess it kind of stuck.”

“Captain America,” he repeated in disbelief.

“Well, think about it,” she said. “We’re trying to fix what went wrong with America years ago. You’d make a pretty symbol.”

“Yeah, pretty. Have you seen Bucky?”

She nodded. “Downstairs with Stark.” Then, she gestured in the direction he should go.

So, Steve slowly made his way down the stairs, marveling at the bea

He reached a door. It was large, metal and he wasn’t even sure a knock would be heard -- yet, he knocked anyway.

-

As Tony worked with Bucky, his mind eased somewhat. Yes, he was still saddened that someone he felt so much for had another, but at the same time, he was on a mission. Even though Bucky was no tech wiz, he was actually a fantastic help in the lab, and offered a fresh perspective.

They were working on a fleet of suits, and they had a Hulk. Clint and Natasha were also amazing, with skill sets he likely couldn’t fathom.

Ross’ project soldier was going down.

With it, they were going to change the American perception of slavery. Steve and Bucky were going to be a catalyst.

Tony Stark, the innovator, felt change on the wind.

“Sir, Steve Rogers is requesting access into the lab.

At those words from JARVIS,Bucky looked at the wall. The clock revealed how long they had been working. “Oh, can we let him in?” he asked.

Tony smiled somberly. Even though Bucky was adjusting to no longer being a slave, it was quite hard for him to accept that he didn’t need to ask Tony for permission.

“Of course.”

Moments later, Steve walked into the room and Tony got a really good look at him. The kid was devastatingly handsome, and it was evident that the serum given to him only made him into a typical gorgeous man. He had already been attractive, even when he was all of nothing.

“Mr. Stark, sir,” Steve said, with a mix of gentlemanly respect and a slave’s deference. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Life is crazy busy.

It was a foolish mission. They were going to get into the base, record footage of the practices, and then with the Hulk’s help, rescue the thirty-eight individuals still in Project Soldier.

Tony had hopes that with his resources, he could broadcast the horrors of what Ross was really doing to the whole world. It was something he was capable of doing and he had a lot of hope.

“I hate to sound like a pessimist,” Steve said, walking up from behind Tony. The glorious looking young man was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans and looked more relaxed than Tony had ever seen him. “I mean, the world doesn’t care about slaves, Mr. Stark.”

“A lot of the world doesn’t,” he agreed, “but a lot of the world is also passive. They know that shit is wrong, but they do nothing about it.”

“Are you talking from experience?” 

Steve’s question was honest, and non-judgemental, considering how deep it dug.

“Yeah, I am,” Tony said honestly. “I grew up rich at the start of the slave boom. So, of course, that means that my asshole father was a slave owner.” 

“And you didn’t agree with it.”

“Of course not,” Tony murmured. “I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t do anything about it. First thing I did after my parents died was get rid of the Stark property slaves, but up until that day I did nothing except sit by passively as slaves did everything of importance in my home.”

“You were young.”

“Old enough to know it was wrong,” Tony replied. He didn’t mean to unload on Steve like that, but the thoughts were heavy in his head. He had known his entire life that he didn’t agree with slavery, and he’d waited until now to do something about it.

Yet, they were doing something, something overwhelmingly good. 

“Steve, can I ask a question?” Tony asked, softly.

The young man looked almost confused by his words, tilting his head to the side. “You don’t have to ask for permission, Mr. Stark.”

Tony smiled. 

“What kind of stuff am I going to get video recording of?” he asked. “I hate to admit to it, but the media needs something juicy. How can I make sure that I see something that’s painful…”

Steve flinched. “Go to the lab,” he said. He walked over to where Tony had left a digital map of the facility up on a monitor. He touched the map, thinking it a static image and was surprised when his touch made the screen zoom in.

“Here,” he said, trying to downplay his shock at what happened. “This is where they did experiments on us, tested our abilities. Chances are, you’re going to find something here that puts a bad taste in the mouth of even the most passionate slave owner…”

Tony could see the pain, clearly, as it crossed Steve’s eyes. As jealous as he was of Bucky’s affection for the man, he couldn’t help appreciate him as a person. He was a strong guy who had been through hell.

“I’m going to make sure this team is successful,” he said softly, trying not to embarrass the guy, but trying to gently reassure him. “What happened to you isn’t going to happen again, Steve.”

-

Steve left Tony, honestly feeling a little better. His skepticism about the world, about their view of slaves, was still there, but at the same time he felt the genius had given him a small touch of optimism that he had not had before. 

He wanted to believe. 

Bucky smiled when he entered the room they were now sharing. “Steve,” he said, as if still in awe of Steve’s very presence.

Steve could not easily get past the arm. Bucky was missing his left arm, it replaced by an amazing metal piece. According to Bucky, Tony had crafted it and it felt no different than the flesh and blood arm that had once been there.

Bucky had always carried so much pain, but it seemed like it had somehow lessened since they’d last seen each other. 

“You look happy,” Steve commented with a smile.

“I am,” Bucky said. “I can’t even believe that you’re real. It seems like part of some wild dream that I once had.”

“You look different than you used to…”

Bucky laughed at that, a warm, genuine laugh. “Well, I am down a limb and a year older.”

“I don’t mean that,” Steve murmured, hoping to be delicate. “You look happy. Honestly happy and I don’t think that’s because of me…”

“Well,” Bucky considered, “I have been happy since Tony saved my life. I’m free in all but the name, and I...I feel like a person for the first time since we were ten years old, Stevie.”

“He and I talked,” Steve replied. “He’s a really good man. I can tell that he carries a lot of weight on his shoulders…”

“He really does,” Bucky admitted. “I think that’s a big part of who he is as a person. He blames himself for things that are far too out of his control.”

“He has a lot of empathy too…”

“He did save me,” Bucky laughed somberly. “I mean, I hate to admit it, but to most people a one-armed slave being carted away would be the last thing they thought about. There’s too much incentive these days to just take care of yourself. And he’s taught me so much…”

“Yeah?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, we watched a ton of movies, and he’s given me all the books that he thinks I need to read…”

As Bucky went on about the wonderful things that Tony had done for him, Steve couldn’t help see the dreamy smile on his face. He knew that expression. He had seen it before, directed at himself, even though he’d been foolish and under too much stress to recognize it for what it was.

“Buck, are you in love with him?”

At that, Bucky’s soft expression hardened almost instantly. 

“What?” he asked. “Steve, what are you talking about? I love you. I love you so much. I almost lost you...I...you know you’re the only person that I love, right? I love you and I never got to tell you.”

Steve tried to ease his mind by touching his shoulder, just above where the prosthetic arm began.

“Bucky, it’s okay…” he whispered. “I’m not mad.”

There was something in Bucky, in that moment, that broke down. It crumbled and his best friend, the man he loved, the strongest man in the entire world, started to collapse inward. It was like watching the buildings go down around them as small children. 

“Buck, look at me.”

Their eyes met and Steve held Bucky’s real flesh-and-blood hand in his, while holding the other shoulder.

“There’s nothing wrong. I’m not mad.”

“I’m conflicted,” Bucky whispered. “I have to be honest with you Steve. I fell in love with him. I was starting to fall and then you came back...and it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m trying to sort out the feelings and I love you so much Steve. I’d never betray you.”

“I know.”

The moment was calm, in spite of everything. Then Tony stepped inside. “Boys, I think we’re ready to go.”


	15. Chapter 15

The Hulk broke through the fence. Tony had never seen so much rage in his entire life as he followed the beast, suit fully equipped for battle. He fired a repulsor at the broken down fence, clearing more of a path for their merry band of misfits. He and Steve led, Natasha and Clint following. Bucky had insisted on going too, in spite of not being enhanced or trained for this. 

He was going to make a difference in the world that had treated him like garbage, he had said, and Tony was not about to be the man who told him no. 

They were immediately hit by six hostiles, or so JARVIS told him loudly in his earpiece. He felt Steve beside him taking one down, and that was another thing he marveled at -- whatever they had done to this guy had not only made him buff, strong, but had also made him insanely capable. 

Tony blasted two of them down and caught Clint as the man took another with a short range arrow.

The last went down as they entered the facility. 

“Go left, remember,” Steve said as he went, following the Hulk’s rage with the determi

“Fantastic response,” said someone far away, through a communication device. It was like the vague, masculine voice was speaking to itself. “The tolerance for pain has gone up exponentially. This specimen will survive.”

Tony shot to kill for the first time in his life. He brought down all eight standing bodies in the room. 

His first line of duty was freeing the young woman from the table. Her eyes were glossy and she looked uncertain as the pain she was put through just  _ stopped.  _ It was almost as though she didn’t trust her senses.

“Who are you?” she rasped.

“Rescue.”

The moment he unstrapped her from the table, she ran at him, kicking him futility in the armor. “Don’t touch me!” she shrieked. “I will not take another one of your tests. I will not fall.”

Tony was surprised as the suit registered the hit, even from a girl dressed in a white gown. It didn’t affect him, but the fact that the suit picked up the damage meant something.

He disengaged his face plate.

Face bare to her, he gave her his best version of a gentle smile. “Hi there,” he said softly. “My name is Tony Stark. Are there others in this wing?”

Shakily, she nodded.

“Then, help me get them out and we have something to show the world.”

The young girl, who told him her name was Anna, helped Tony get the others out of the medical wing. He found four others, in various states. He took them to the mainframe of the base, where Bucky was dressed in dark fatigues and filming everything he saw with Natasha covering him with a gun.

The fight, to Tony, felt like a blur. People came at them, and people died. Ever since the moment he had been reborn in that cave as Iron Man, he had developed a significant skill for compartmentalizing and pushing away the emotion until the battle was over and the game was won.

The only thing that stopped the blur was a bullet that hit him in a weak spot in the plate, compromising his suit and burning his shoulder.

“Shit,” he murmured.

Ross himself was there and the Hulk was laying into him. Tony could see the man like another blur, as he was slammed into a brick column. He winced at the brutality of it, but he knew that it was very much deserved.

There was a moment when he was certain that the Hulk had killed the good old general.

“Hey!”

Natasha had followed the Hulk and was behind the creature, putting both of her delicate hands on one of his big arms. 

The Hulk stopped mid pummeling of his captor.

“Hey big guy,” she murmured, hands flat against his skin. “Let’s try our best not to kill him.”

The Hulk dropped the bag of flesh that was the former general. 

“He…hurt,” the creature managed, surprising Tony with a capacity for actual speech. “Hurt me. Hurt Banner.”

“I know it,” Natasha whispered, barely missing a beat even though she was clearly shaken by the Hulk’s ability to speak to her. “We can do more damage to him if he survives.”

Then it was over. They had kind of won. Tony nursed his shoulder, looking to Bucky. The kid wasn’t a warrior but with his hair slicked back and the camera pressed to his chest with his prosthetic arm, he really looked like one. 

“Tony, are you okay?”

He was not able to answer, because that was when the second wave of soldiers came. The gunfire was shocking and definitely doing a number on his suit. He put his body in front of Bucky’s, but Bucky was just as protective, standing against him and shooting an assailant with a gun Tony hadn’t even noticed he was carrying.

“Stand down,” he said to the younger man. “I have full body armor and you’ve only got that damned vest.”

“I’m not going to let you get hurt,” Bucky replied, as they fought their way out. “I love you.”

nation of an old soldier who had been fighting the good fight his whole life. His demeanor was...really breathtaking.

Tony took the left and headed down towards the med wing. He unlocked the door with precision, using his suit’s laser. It gave way and he pushed through.

A young woman was strapped to a table and screaming. She couldn’t have been older than nineteen or twenty, with stringy blonde hair and haunted blue eyes. She let out a desperate scream and he could see that her brain waves were being monitored on a display nearby. They were erratic, in pain, terrified.

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I am concluding this with this chapter. I've lost some steam and I wanted to end this before it ended up without conclusion. I promise I will try to revisit this verse so please follow me on tumblr at twoinacrowd or my writing only tumblr egosoffire. Thank you so much to all of those who kept commenting every chapter.

 

Tony’s work was cut out for him. 

Using the computer servers that his company had patented and created in the past few years, Tony was able to broadcast to the world the horrors of what he had seen. Some of the young slaves that they rescued weren’t so keen on the idea, but the young girl whose torture he had witnessed, Anna, was more than willing. Her enthusiasm made all the difference in some of the young slaves taken in as soldiers. 

“I don’t love it,” she whispered, where she sat with Bucky, Steve and Tony, discussing the issue before it happened, “but it will be worth it in the end.”

The video that he broadcast to the world was enough to bring Tony to tears. It was something terrible, something that elicited a feeling of despair unlike any other that he had ever experienced. How could the world recover after it had gone so bad? It had become so very sour. People treated others like things, and that wasn’t something you recovered from.

Would slavery ever be a mark of the past? Tony could not wrap his head around it enough to truly understand. 

“Hey,” Bucky said, walking into the room where Tony was pouring over the released footage. He tried to hastily wipe his tears away, but the wise younger man caught him instantly. “Tony…”

“It’s just a lot,” he said, wiping at his eyes again. “We captured so much horror. So much dehumanization. We want to say that our goal is to end slavery, to make the world a better place, but it’s just daunting how far the world has left to go. Can we ever, as a society, improve?” 

The young man stepped up, put his hand on Tony’s shoulder.

Tony turned to look him in the eye, and that was when Bucky took a swift step forward and kissed him. 

The kiss caught Tony off guard and left his heart thudding violently against his ribcage. By instinct, he kissed back, his hand cupping the side of the young man’s cheek. The kiss was natural and easy and everything he wanted. He just slid into it, but it was  _ wrong.  _

“No, no,” he said, as he gently pushed Bucky away with a hand at the center of his chest. “Why did you do that?”

“I...um, I wanted to.”

“But Steve,” he said softly. “You love Steve.”

“I agree.” For a moment, Bucky looked sad and so much older than he really was. “I love Steve with all of my heart, but I love you too.”

Tony was so shocked that he laughed. It was a small, surprised laugh that betrayed how confusing this all was. “We need to talk about this…” he murmured. “But after. After all this is over. Society…”

“Society said I should be bought and sold when I was a child,” Bucky said. “I’m not a huge fan of society…” 

“Agreed.”

“But when it’s over…”

It was over in a few weeks. Slavery wasn’t ended, of course, but the tide was changing. 

“It doesn’t feel like enough,” Tony admitted, as he looked at the news on a datapad in front of him. Bucky and Steve were both in the room with him, the front part of his laboratory. Bucky was leaned against a bench, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Steve, on the other hand, was next to Tony, leaning over and looking down at the data in front of him.

“It’s not,” Steve agreed, “but it’s the start of a future, of criminalizing slavery. You’re going to be a pioneer of it.”

“Even though I officially own two slaves now,” Tony huffed somberly. With the dissolving of Project Soldier and Ross’ arrest, the best he could do was put the slaves into safe custody under himself, Natasha, Clint and Bruce. Yet, they were waiting for the moment they could free their slaves legally - a moment that was coming sooner rather than later.

“The future is coming,” Steve assured.

“You guys are my future, personally,” Bucky said. “I don’t know much more than that.”

Honestly, Tony didn’t know much more than that either. He had discovered a future with two wonderful young men, two men who meant the world to him. He really felt like there was hope.


End file.
